Pennywise brings punk to Midtown

California band, reunited with singer, preps new album

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Southern California pop-punk band Pennywise will return to Midtown Ballroom with Strung Out on Saturday. The band is getting ready to release its 12th studio album, its first in a decade to feature all-new original songs with singer Jim Lindberg. (Kane Hibberd/Submitted photo) - Bulletin

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Southern California pop-punk band Pennywise will return to Midtown Ballroom with Strung Out on Saturday. The band is getting ready to release its 12th studio album, its first in a decade to feature all-new original songs with singer Jim Lindberg. (Kane Hibberd/Submitted photo)7239477

Pennywise’s upcoming 12th studio album is titled “Never Gonna Die” — a fitting statement for a band that’s been around since the late ’80s.

But that statement wasn’t so assured for the Southern California pop-punk quartet almost a decade ago. Vocalist Jim Lindberg, who co-founded the band with guitarist Fletcher Dragge, original bassist Jason Thirsk and drummer Byron McMakin in the late ’80s, quit in August 2009 following touring behind ninth studio album “Reason to Believe.” The group quickly rebounded, hiring Zoli Téglás of Ignite as its new vocalist and releasing 10th studio album “All or Nothing” in May 2012, but by October of that year, Téglás was out after being sidelined by a back injury, and Lindberg was back in.

Rather than dive straight into a new album, the band felt the need to “get back on track,” as Dragge put it. “Yesterdays,” released in 2014, features the group’s earliest material recorded for the first time.

“Because the songs had already been written, all we had to do was go back and dig them up on demo tapes and get in there and jam them,” Dragge said recently from his home in Hermosa Beach, California, about a week before kicking off Pennywise’s co-headlining tour with Strung Out, which hits Midtown Ballroom on Saturday.

“And it was really cool because a lot of the demos had Jason singing on them, and it was very nostalgic and brought back some good memories. We played a really cool, local show with all of our friends that were present in the backyard parties in the late ’80s when we played all those old songs. It was just a good way to get back on track — get Pennywise back on track with Jim back, go back to the early days when we were carefree and we didn’t have a bunch of drama and bulls--- going on that winds up happening to bands as they become successful.”

Pennywise seems to have suffered in this department more than most bands. Lindberg’s three-year break was actually his second — he quit for a brief stretch in 1991 and 1992, shortly after the release of the band’s self-titled debut album. And Thirsk, the band’s creative engine in its early years, committed suicide in 1996 after struggling with alcoholism.

Tensions were coming up on the road before Lindberg left in 2009, according to Dragge. Due to frequent arguments, it often felt as if the band’s members were “going through the motions,” Dragge said. He described the singer’s most recent break from the band: “I don’t really term it good, but I would say it might have been necessary.”

“We’re notorious for partying, and I’m definitely leading the pack on that one,” Dragge said. “I’m a nightmare for sure on the road drinking; everyone knows that. And so things got to a head, and I think we needed a break whether or not we wanted to believe it or not. We took that break — we kept rolling, but it taught us a lot because I think bands go through things — members come and go, bands break up and they reform, and they play their last tour 40 times in a row. I think it’s honestly — Pennywise really is me, Jim, Byron, Randy and Jason — although he’s gone, he’s still with us. I always say it’s the sum of its parts, and when you remove one of the parts, the motor doesn’t run right.”

Diving deep into the band’s past seems to have helped. In addition to “Yesterdays,” the group embarked on a series of tours marking the 20th anniversaries of its first four records, in which it played those albums in their entireties. Most recently, the band wrapped a tour of 1997’s “Full Circle,” which marked its first album with current bassist Randy Bradbury as a full-time member.

The band took this energy into the studio on its most recent record, which is due out April 20 on Epitaph Records.

“We always say, ‘Oh, we went back to the old-school vibe, and we tried to capture the early spirit of Pennywise’ — I think we say that on every frickin’ record,” Dragge said. “That’s what we’re trying to do realistically, and I think that’s what all bands are trying to do — Guns N’ Roses want to write ‘Appetite for Destruction’ again, and Foo Fighters want to write this, blah, blah, blah, the list goes on. But I really think on this record that it definitely has an old-school feel as far as music and melodies.”